Marty Pefferlawis a comedian. Unfortunately, no one’s laughing at his jokes. Cash-strapped and unemployed, he faces eviction from his grim apartment. But an opportunity arises: two weeks at sea as the resident entertainer on a Caribbean cruise.

Once aboard the Valor-Fantasy, Marty is swept into a bizarre world of fake opulence and cheap luxury. Its passengers gleefully soak up the indulgence, gorging on nightly orgiastic lobster feasts and – in the words of their square-jawed, debonair host “Captain Mike” – the freedom to “induce lavish living.” Immediately landing in Captain Mike’s bad books, Marty’s targeted as a threat to his dominion. Marty is haunted by strange visions of Tanner Rayburn, the degenerate comic he’d replaced and who met an untimely end during the last cruise. The only kindred spirit Marty finds is Annie Huculak – traveling solo on her own spiritual quest, she advises Marty to banish his expectations and simply go with the flow.

Only when Marty heeds Annie’s advice and leaves his previous convictions behind can he experience the cruise in all its bizarre attempts at unbridled extravagance. He throws away his old material and feeds the audience the pabulum they crave. But as he ascends to the top of this floating shitheap, the structure beneath threatens to collapse, both literally and figuratively. Soon enough, a chain of events unfolds that sends the ship spiralling into Lord of the Flies-esque levels of depravity and pandemonium.